Blood in the Water
by Shmegegi
Summary: DA random prompt. Asha'bellenar's help never comes without a price.


**Author's Note: **_Blood In The Water_ is set about twenty years before _DA:O_. Enjoy!

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**Blood In The Water**

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"This elf is guilty of resisting arrest, assaulting a Templar, and defying the Chantry."

Her heavy eyelids blinked open, and her green eyes struggled to focus on her surroundings. The night sky yawned above her.

"As Knight-Lieutenant and the highest-ranking Templar of those here gathered…"

Her head ached. The snow melted into her black hair and chilled her scalp and neck. Goosebumps tightened her tan skin.

"I sentence this apostate to death."

Plate sabatons strode through the snow and stopped at her side. The silver of his armor and longsword gleamed in the pale blue light of his lantern. Shadows were thrown across the flame-wreathed sword on his breastplate and deep into his visor.

"May the Maker have mercy on your soul, apostate."

His gauntlet gripped the handle of the longsword and pointed the blade down. Her instincts reached into herself with magic. The ghost of a protective barrier emerged around her thin body.

"You don't deserve it."

The longsword was plunged into her—it cut through the barrier as if it were nothing—pain exploded in her abdomen. She squeezed her eyes shut and cried out in agony. Warmth burst from beneath her dark skin, bubbled around the silvery sword, and poured into her leather robe. Her abdomen clenched around the intrusive blade, even as the magic in her body attempted to force it out. The longsword was wrenched out of her and the horrible pressure vanished; it was immediately replaced with a sharp pain that _burned_.

Hot tears sprang into her green eyes. She forced them open, and she watched as he casually wiped the blood onto his crimson regalia. He gestured to the others and, together, they disappeared into the black woods.

Her fingers shook violently as they dug around the tear in her robe. Warm blood bathed her calloused fingertips and rapidly cooled in the night air. With every ragged breath, the injury tore and bled anew. Through her silent sobs, her instincts invoked the magic of Sylaise, but the wound throbbed and ignored the healing magic.

She clenched her neck muscles and forced her head out of the snow. Her green eyes opened and peered over the hills and plains of her body: her fingers pried the robe apart, and she spied a slender wound that dug deep into her core. She dropped her head into the snow and cried harder. The hot tears dripped down her face, and their trails froze in the night breeze.

A wet nose nudged her arm.

She sniffed and looked at the creature: a great wolf with black fur stood beside her. Its golden eyes stared down at her.

"Dread wolf." Fresh tears welled in her eyes. They ran down her tattooed cheeks and dripped into her black hair. She pressed her legs together and forced her arms away from the wolf's muzzle. "St-stay away from me," she demanded feebly. "Stay…stay away."

The wolf watched her. Its head was lowered so that its skull was even with its massive shoulders; one ear was pointed behind it and the other pointed forward.

She kept her green eyes fixated on the wolf as she dragged herself into a sitting position—her wound bleeding freely—and began to crawl away from it. Her hands pulled her body through the snow, her numb fingers digging at the frozen ground beneath it, and her heels dug into the icy dirt to push herself along. Black hair stuck to the trails on her cheeks, and her fur-lined cloak fell from her shoulders as she moved.

The wolf took one step forward.

"Stay where you are!" she snapped through her tears. Her hands gripped the ground, and her limbs trembled beneath her weight. The leather robe was damp and cold; it clung to her bruised and bloodied skin. Her bones ached, her frozen fingers protested. Then—

Her hand grabbed not the snow-covered ground, but sunk through an ice cap and fell straight into cold water. She shrieked as the rest of her followed and slumped into the half-frozen lake. The thin ice broke away from her small body, and she was submerged entirely. Water flooded her senses, and her scream drowned beneath the surface.

Everything went black.

The cold smothered her senses and tightened her throat. Her injury was stabbed over and over again by the icy coldness of the lake, as if it wielded daggers and cut into her stomach with them. Hot blood clouded the water and turned it warm, but beneath her it was frigid. Her jaw clenched and her lungs seemed to swell inside her chest.

_I'm going to die here._

The ground beneath her sloped downward at a sharp angle. She clawed at the surface and kicked frantically in the water, but her hand could not even reach the precious air above her. As her body sunk into the black depths of the lake, she knew she would die there.

Her mouth fell open—her throat tightened—her chest swelled—her brain screamed—

Something broke the surface. Something long and thin and rough to the touch grabbed the center of her body, like a giant and skeletal hand, and pulled her straight out of the water. The cold air hit her forcefully, so that all she could do was drop her head back and let her jaw hang open. Then, her chest heaved and she began to cough violently. She doubled over the long and skeletal hand and spat water into the frozen lake.

The thing that held her raised her far above the surface of the lake and carried her towards the snow-covered shore. She twisted around her, her injury throbbing painfully, and realized a great and black _tree_ held her in its branches. The leaves had fallen in the cold months, and the tree was nothing more than a frozen, black trunk with spindly branches sticking out.

She could not believe it.

The tree laid her on the shore, atop a crisp patch of snow. It straightened upright and folded its branches among itself, and there it stood, as still as any other tree in the Wilds.

Her leather robe clung to her chilled flesh and her black hair clung to her wet face. The wind bit her pointed ears and long nose. Even as she began to shiver uncontrollably, she could do nothing more than stare at the tree.

"Your Keeper once asked me how I do that," the voice of an old woman said from behind her.

She jumped and twisted around: not a dozen paces away, a woman with black-and-gray hair stood in the snow. There were faint lines around her full mouth, her yellow eyes, and above her dark brow. She wore a thick leather robe and a heavy shawl lined with fur.

"He was younger, then, and not afraid to ask questions," the old woman continued. She strode towards the lake. "I told him the trick was to find a tree that hadn't yet watched you start a fire. The ones that have would rather not get involved."

She wrapped her arms tightly around herself. "You…you know the K-Keeper?" she asked through chattering teeth.

"Mahariel is a good lad." The woman came to a stop. "Still young, but love ages us all beyond our years."

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "…Asha'bellanar?"

The woman chuckled. "One of my many names. Also the second longest. How the People love their syllables."

Her eyes widened. She scrambled to her knees and bowed before the old woman. Her wound reopened and bled on her robe, and the warmth flooded from her face. She wavered, suddenly light-headed.

"Lay down, girl, before you bleed to death."

She dropped onto her knees and pressed her forehead to the ground. In the silence, she could hear her heart beat fervently. The warmth gradually returned to her cheeks. "Ma serannas, Asha'bellanar," she mumbled.

"Don't thank me yet. If you are so familiar with me, then you know my help never comes without a price."

Silence fell over them. The old woman stared thoughtfully at the lake.

She shivered. The wound pricked and stung painfully. She laid a hand over the injury and tried, once again, to invoke Sylaise's magic. Her hand remained cold—she knew she could not summon the magic herself—but the wound began to stitch itself together. The muscle wove together and the tan skin knit over it. In a few heartbeats, the injury was almost completely healed. A pale scar remained where the sword had stabbed her. She raised her head and stared at the old woman. "Ma serannas," she said again, "I—I owe you my life."

"And you will give your life, but not for me." The woman turned to her, her face grim.

No longer blinded by pain and near death, she saw, for the first time, that the old woman's leather and pale skin were splattered with red-brown blood. Her heart went cold.

The woman fell quiet for a moment, her eyes scrutinizing the elf before her. "When the wind and the stars and the birds talk of my arrival, remember this night, Marethari."

Young Marethari nodded. She watched as the old woman, Asha'bellanar, turned on her heel and disappeared into the Korcari Wilds. Slowly and shakily, she got to her feet and tested her strength. Her body responded with newfound vigor.

_I must return to the clan. I must see Keeper Mahariel._

Marethari took a deep breath and hurried into the woods.


End file.
